Lady Cockburn and Her Three Eldest Sons (1775) is an oil on canvasportrait by Joshua Reynolds. Work began on the picture in 1773, and, in Grand Manner fashion, Reynolds exploited two classical paintings: the attitude of the child on the left was modelled on Cupid in Velázquez's Toilet of Venus whilst the general composition was inspired by Anthony van Dyck's Charity. The painting passed to Mister Cockburn's son George, and then to his daughter, Mister Hamilton, the wife of Sir James Hamilton.[1]
It was bequeathed to London's National Gallery in 1906.[2] The painting is one of the few signed by Reynolds: Lady Cockburn's dress bears his signature and the year 1775.[1]

Lady Cockburn (Augusta Anne Ayscough, 1749–1837) was the daughter of Francis Ayscough[3] and his wife Anne. She married Sir James Cockburn (/ˈkoʊbərn/, Scottish English: [ˈkobʌɾn]) the 8th Baronet and became Lady Cockburn of Langton in Berwick in 1769.[3] The marriage was made as the result of a large marriage settlement of twenty thousand pounds which was arranged by her maternal uncle, Sir George Lyttlelton, her widowed mother and her brother George Edward Ayscough. The money was raised on her father's estate and included three houses in London and two farms.[4]

1.
Joshua Reynolds
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Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential eighteenth-century English painter, specialising in portraits. He promoted the Grand Style in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect and he was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769. Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723 the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds and his father had been a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to the university. One of his sisters was Mary Palmer, seven years his senior, author of Devonshire Dialogue, in 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshuas pupilage, and nine years later advanced money for his expenses in Italy. His other siblings included Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson, as a boy, he came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardsons An Essay on the Theory of Painting, having shown an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson, who had been born in Devon. Hudson had a collection of old master drawings, including some by Guercino, although apprenticed to Hudson for four years, Reynolds only remained with him until summer 1743. Having left Hudson, Reynolds worked for some time as a portrait-painter in Plymouth Dock and he returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his fathers death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, while with the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers, and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, and then to Rome, while in Rome he suffered a severe cold, which left him partially deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna, Venice, and he was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi, then aged about 17. Apart from a brief interlude in 1770, Marchi remained in Reynolds employment as an assistant for the rest of the artists career. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon, before establishing himself in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. He took rooms in St Martins Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street and he achieved success rapidly, and was extremely prolific. In 1760 Reynolds moved into a house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants. Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works, in the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. By 1761 Reynolds could command a fee of 80 guineas for a full-length portrait, the clothing of Reynolds sitters was usually painted either by one of his pupils, his studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi, or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms. Lay figures were used to model the clothes and he had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, and painted the view in about 1780

2.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area

3.
Portrait
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A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person, for this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, nonetheless, many subjects, such as Akhenaten and some other Egyptian pharaohs, can be recognised by their distinctive features. The 28 surviving rather small statues of Gudea, ruler of Lagash in Sumeria between c.2144 -2124 BC, show a consistent appearance with some individuality. Some of the earliest surviving painted portraits of people who were not rulers are the Greco-Roman funeral portraits that survived in the dry climate of Egypts Fayum district. These are almost the only paintings from the world that have survived, apart from frescos, though many sculptures. Although the appearance of the figures differs considerably, they are considerably idealized, the art of the portrait flourished in Ancient Greek and especially Roman sculpture, where sitters demanded individualized and realistic portraits, even unflattering ones. During the 4th century, the portrait began to retreat in favor of a symbol of what that person looked like. In the Europe of the Early Middle Ages representations of individuals are mostly generalized, true portraits of the outward appearance of individuals re-emerged in the late Middle Ages, in tomb monuments, donor portraits, miniatures in illuminated manuscripts and then panel paintings. Moche culture of Peru was one of the few ancient civilizations which produced portraits and these works accurately represent anatomical features in great detail. The individuals portrayed would have been recognizable without the need for other symbols or a reference to their names. The individuals portrayed were members of the elite, priests, warriors. They were represented during several stages of their lives, the faces of gods were also depicted. To date, no portraits of women have been found, there is particular emphasis on the representation of the details of headdresses, hairstyles, body adornment and face painting. One of the portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da Vincis painting titled Mona Lisa. What has been claimed as the worlds oldest known portrait was found in 2006 in the Vilhonneur grotto near Angoulême and is thought to be 27,000 years old. Profile view, full view, and three-quarter view, are three common designations for portraits, each referring to a particular orientation of the head of the individual depicted. Such terms would tend to have greater applicability to two-dimensional artwork such as photography, in the case of three-dimensional artwork, the viewer can usually alter their orientation to the artwork by moving around it

4.
Rokeby Venus
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The Rokeby Venus is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. The painting is in the National Gallery, London, numerous works, from the ancient to the baroque, have been cited as sources of inspiration for Velázquez. The nude Venuses of the Italian painters, such as Giorgiones Sleeping Venus, in this work, Velázquez combined two established poses for Venus, recumbent on a couch or a bed, and gazing at a mirror. She is often described as looking at herself on the mirror and this phenomenon is known as the Venus effect. In a number of ways the painting represents a departure, through its central use of a mirror. The Rokeby Venus is the surviving female nude by Velázquez. Nudes were extremely rare in seventeenth-century Spanish art, which was policed actively by members of the Spanish Inquisition, in 1906, the painting was purchased by National Art Collections Fund for the National Gallery, London. Although it was attacked and badly damaged in 1914 by the suffragette Mary Richardson and she is shown without the mythological paraphernalia normally included in depictions of the scene, jewellery, roses, and myrtle are all absent. Unlike most earlier portrayals of the goddess, which show her with blond hair, the female figure can be identified as Venus because of the presence of her son, Cupid. Venus gazes into a mirror held by Cupid, who is without his usual bow, when the work was first inventoried, it was described as a nude woman, probably owing to its controversial nature. Venus looks outward at the viewer of the painting through her reflected image in the mirror, however, the image is blurred and reveals only a vague reflection of her facial characteristics, the reflected image of the head is much larger than it would be in reality. According to Wallace, There is nothing spiritual about face or picture, the classical setting is an excuse for a very material aesthetic sexuality—not sex, as such, but an appreciation of the beauty that accompanies attraction. Intertwining pink silk ribbons are draped over the mirror and curl over its frame, the folds of the bed sheets echo the goddesss physical form, and are rendered to emphasise the sweeping curves of her body. The Rokeby Venus is the only surviving nude by Velázquez, two were mentioned in the Royal collection, but may have been lost in the 1734 fire that destroyed the main Royal Palace of Madrid. A further one was recorded in the collection of Domingo Guerra Coronel and these records mention a reclining Venus, Venus and Adonis, and a Psyche and Cupid. Although the work is thought to have been painted from life. In contemporary Spain it was acceptable for artists to employ male nude models for studies, however and it has been claimed that the painting depicts a mistress Velázquez is known to have had while in Italy, who is supposed to have borne his child. Others have claimed that the model is the same as in Coronation of the Virgin and Las Hilanderas, the figures of both Venus and Cupid were significantly altered during the painting process, the result of the artists corrections to the contours as initially painted

5.
Anthony van Dyck
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Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England, after enjoying great success in Italy and Flanders. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draughtsman, the Van Dyke beard is named after him. Antoon van Dyck was born to parents in Antwerp. By the age of fifteen he was already an accomplished artist, as his Self-portrait, 1613–14. He was admitted to the Antwerp painters Guild of Saint Luke as a master by February 1618. His influence on the young artist was immense, Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as the best of my pupils. At the same time the dominance of Rubens in the small and declining city of Antwerp probably explains why, despite his periodic returns to the city, van Dyck spent most of his career abroad. In 1620, at the instigation of George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, van Dyck went to England for the first time where he worked for King James I of England, receiving £100. After about four months he returned to Flanders, but moved on in late 1621 to Italy and he was already presenting himself as a figure of consequence, annoying the rather bohemian Northern artists colony in Rome, says Giovan Pietro Bellori, by appearing with the pomp of Zeuxis. He was mostly based in Genoa, although he travelled extensively to other cities. In 1627, he went back to Antwerp where he remained for five years, a life-size group portrait of twenty-four City Councillors of Brussels he painted for the council-chamber was destroyed in 1695. He was evidently very charming to his patrons, and, like Rubens, well able to mix in aristocratic and court circles, by 1630 he was described as the court painter of the Habsburg Governor of Flanders, the Archduchess Isabella. In this period he produced many religious works, including large altarpieces. King Charles I was the most passionate and generous collector of art among the British monarchs, and saw art as a way of promoting his elevated view of the monarchy. In 1628, he bought the collection that the Gonzagas of Mantua were forced to dispose of. In 1626, he was able to persuade Orazio Gentileschi to settle in England, later to be joined by his daughter Artemisia and some of his sons. Rubens was a target, who eventually came on a diplomatic mission, which included painting, in 1630. He was very well-treated during his visit, during which he was knighted

6.
Berwick-upon-Tweed
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Berwick-upon-Tweed is a town in the county of Northumberland. It is the northernmost town in England and it is located 2 1⁄2 miles south of the Scottish border, at the mouth of the River Tweed on the east coast. It is about 56 miles east-south east of Edinburgh,65 miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne and 345 miles north of London, the United Kingdom Census 2011 recorded Berwicks population as 12,043. A civil parish and town council were created in 2008, Berwick was founded as an Anglo-Saxon settlement during the time of the Kingdom of Northumbria, which was annexed by England in the 10th century. The area was for more than 400 years central to historic border wars between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, and several times possession of Berwick changed hands between the two kingdoms, the last time it changed hands was when England retook it in 1482. Berwick remains a market town and also has some notable architectural features, in particular its medieval town walls, its Elizabethan ramparts. The name Berwick is of Old English origin, and is derived from the term bere-wīc, combining bere, meaning barley, Berwick thus means barley village or barley farm. In the post-Roman period, the area was inhabited by the Brythons of Bryneich, later, the region became part of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia. Bernicia later united with the kingdom of Deira to form Northumbria, Berwick remained part of the Earldom of Northumbria until control passed to the Scots following the Battle of Carham of 1018. The town itself was founded as an Anglo-Saxon settlement during the time of the Kingdom of Northumbria, between the late 10th and early 11th centuries, the land between the rivers Forth and Tweed came under Scottish control, either through conquest by Scotland or through cession by England. Berwick was made a burgh in the reign of David I. A mint was present in the town by 1153, while under Scottish control, Berwick was referred to as South Berwick in order to differentiate it from the town of North Berwick, East Lothian, near Edinburgh. Berwick had a hospital for the sick and poor which was administered by the Church. Dated at Edinburgh June 8, in the 20th year of his reign, Berwicks strategic position on the Anglo-Scottish border during centuries of war between the two nations and its relatively great wealth led to a succession of raids, sieges and takeovers. William I of Scotland invaded and attempted to capture northern England in 1173-74, after his defeat, Berwick was ceded to Henry II of England. It was later back to William by Richard I of England in order to raise funds for his Crusade. Berwick had become a town by the middle of the 13th century. In 1291–92 Berwick was the site of Edward I of Englands arbitration in the contest for the Scottish crown between John Balliol and Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale, the decision in favour of Balliol was pronounced in the Great Hall of Berwick Castle on 17 November 1292

7.
George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton
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George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton PC, known as Sir George Lyttelton, Bt between 1751 and 1756, was a British statesman and patron of the arts from the Lyttelton family. Lord Lyttelton was the son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, 4th Baronet, by his wife Christian, daughter of Sir Richard Temple and he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He was Member of Parliament for Okehampton from 1735 to 1756, in 1741 he was also elected for Old Sarum, but chose to continue to sit for Okehampton. He was one of the politicians who opposed Robert Walpole as a member of the Whig Opposition the 1730s and he served as secretary to Frederick, Prince of Wales, from 1737, and as a Commissioner of the Treasury in 1744. After Walpoles fall, Lyttelton became Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1756 he was raised to the peerage as Lord Lyttelton, Baron of Frankley in the County of Worcester. Lord Lyttelton was a friend and supporter to Alexander Pope in the 1730s, james Thomson addresses him throughout his poem The Seasons, and Lyttelton arranged a pension for Thomson. He wrote Dialogues of the Dead in 1760 with Elizabeth Montagu, leader of the bluestockings, the former work is part of a tradition of such dialogues. Henry Fielding dedicated Tom Jones to him, Lyttelton spent many years and a fortune developing Hagley Hall and its park which contains many follies. The hall itself, which is in north Worcestershire, was designed by Sanderson Miller and is the last of the great Palladian houses to be built in England and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1744. In the 1740s, Lyttelton and Gilbert West went to Oxford, there, they agreed to research two key points of Christianity, with the aim of proving them false. Lyttelton set out to prove that Saul of Tarsus was never converted to Christianity. Each planned to do a job, taking a year to establish his case. But as they proceeded, they concluded that Christianity was true. West eventually wrote Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Lyttelton wrote a lengthy text titled Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul. In a Letter to Gilbert West, Esq, West became convinced of the truth of the Resurrection, and Lyttelton of the genuine conversion of Saint Paul on the basis of it. Lord Lyttelton married firstly Lucy, daughter of Hugh Fortescue, in 1742, after her death in 1747 he married secondly Elizabeth, daughter of Field Marshal Sir Robert Rich, 4th Baronet, in 1749. He died in August 1773, aged 64, and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral and he was succeeded by his eldest son from his first marriage, Thomas. Leigh Rayments Peerage Pages Burkes Peerage and Baronetage, s. v

8.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established as a sovereign state on 1 January 1801 by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The growing desire for an Irish Republic led to the Irish War of Independence, Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, and the state was consequently renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Britain financed the European coalition that defeated France in 1815 in the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire thereby became the foremost world power for the next century. The Crimean War with Russia and the Boer wars were relatively small operations in a largely peaceful century, rapid industrialisation that began in the decades prior to the states formation continued up until the mid-19th century. A devastating famine, exacerbated by government inaction in the century, led to demographic collapse in much of Ireland. It was an era of economic modernization and growth of industry, trade and finance. Outward migration was heavy to the colonies and to the United States. Britain also built up a large British Empire in Africa and Asia, India, by far the most important possession, saw a short-lived revolt in 1857. In foreign policy Britain favoured free trade, which enabled its financiers and merchants to operate successfully in many otherwise independent countries, as in South America. Britain formed no permanent military alliances until the early 20th century, when it began to cooperate with Japan, France and Russia, and moved closer to the United States. A brief period of limited independence for Ireland came to an end following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the British governments fear of an independent Ireland siding against them with the French resulted in the decision to unite the two countries. This was brought about by legislation in the parliaments of both kingdoms and came into effect on 1 January 1801, however, King George III was bitterly opposed to any such Emancipation and succeeded in defeating his governments attempts to introduce it. When the Treaty of Amiens ended the war, Britain agreed to return most of the territories it had seized, in May 1803, war was declared again. In 1806, Napoleon issued the series of Berlin Decrees, which brought into effect the Continental System and this policy aimed to eliminate the threat from the British by closing French-controlled territory to foreign trade. Frances population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of the British Isles, Napoleon expected that cutting Britain off from the European mainland would end its economic hegemony. The Spanish uprising in 1808 at last permitted Britain to gain a foothold on the Continent, after Napoleons surrender and exile to the island of Elba, peace appeared to have returned. The Allies united and the armies of Wellington and Blucher defeated Napoleon once, simultaneous with the Napoleonic Wars, trade disputes, arming hostile Indians and British impressment of American sailors led to the War of 1812 with the United States. The war was little noticed in Britain, which could devote few resources to the conflict until the fall of Napoleon in 1814, American frigates inflicted a series of defeats on the Royal Navy, which was short on manpower due to the conflict in Europe

9.
Ambassador
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The word is also often used more liberally for persons who are known, without national appointment, to represent certain professions, activities and fields of endeavor such as sales. An ambassador is the government representative stationed in a foreign capital. The host country typically allows the control of specific territory called an embassy, whose territory, staff. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an ambassador has the highest diplomatic rank, countries may choose to maintain diplomatic relations at a lower level by appointing a chargé daffaires in place of an ambassador. The equivalent to an Ambassador exchanged among members of the Commonwealth of Nations are known as High Commissioners, the ambassadors of the Holy See are known as Papal or Apostolic Nuncios. The first known usage of the term is known to be in the 14th century, the foreign government to which an ambassador is assigned must first approve the person. In some cases, the government might reverse its approval by declaring the diplomat a persona non grata. This kind of declaration usually results in recalling the ambassador to his/her home nation, due to the advent of modern travel, todays world is a much smaller place in relative terms. As an officer of the service, an ambassador is expected to protect the citizens of his home country in the host country. Another result of the increase in travel is the growth of trade between nations. For most countries, the economy is now part of the global economy. This means increased opportunities to sell and trade with other nations, one of the cornerstones of foreign diplomatic missions is to work for peace. This task can grow into a fight against international terrorism, the trade, international bribery. Ambassadors help stop these acts, helping people across the globe and these activities are important and sensitive and are usually carried out in coordination with the Defense Ministry of the state and the head of the nation. The rise of the diplomatic system was a product of the Italian Renaissance. The use of ambassadors became a strategy in Italy during the 17th century. The political changes in Italy altered the role of ambassadors in diplomatic affairs, because many of the states in Italy were small in size, they were particularly vulnerable to larger states. The ambassador system was used to disperse information and to protect the vulnerable states

10.
Portrait of Omai
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Portrait of Omai is an oil-on-canvas portrait by English artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, completed c.1776. Omai was a Polynesian visitor to England in the 18th century, from the island of Raiatea, he left the Society Islands with Commander Tobias Furneaux on his ship HMS Adventure. Furneauxs ship had left England in 1772, accompanying Captain James Cook on his voyage of discovery in the Pacific. After visiting New Zealand, Omai arrived in England on Furneauxs ship in July 1774, Omai was admired by London society, staying with the President of the Royal Society Sir Joseph Banks and meeting King George III, Dr Samuel Johnson, Frances Burney, and other English celebrities. He returned to the Pacific with Cooks third voyage in July 1776 and he stayed behind after Cook left in November 1777, and Omai died there in late 1779. Reynolds portrayed Omai as a figure, in an idealised depiction echoing Jean-Jacques Rousseaus concept of a noble savage. He stands barefoot, alone in a rural Arcadian landscape with unusual palm-like trees and his adlocutio pose was inspired by the Apollo Belvedere, it emphasises the tattoos on his hands, but also makes classical allusions. The work measures 90 ×57 inches and it was painted in around 1775, and was one of 12 portraits exhibited by Reynolds at the Royal Academys eighth exhibition in 1776, to great acclaim. It was praised as a likeness of the subject. The other paintings exhibited by Reynolds in 1776 included a full portrait of Georgiana. A pencil preparatory sketch is held by the National Library of Australia as part of the Rex Nan Kivell Collection, the painting was reproduced as a mezzotint engraving by Johann Jacobé, published by John Boydell in 1780. Reynolds was not commissioned to paint Omais portrait, and the work remained in his studio until his death in 1792 and it was auctioned by Greenwoods in April 1796, and acquired by the art dealer Michael Bryan for 100 guineas. Bryan sold it to art collector Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle and it was not seen again at a public exhibition until it appeared at the Royal Academy in 1954. The painting was included in the estate of George Howard, Baron Howard of Henderskelfe when he died in November 1984. It was put on sale by his son, Simon Howard, to meet the costs of a divorce, Howard offered to sell the work to the Tate Gallery, but its suggested price of £5.5 million was rejected. Auctioned at Sothebys in September 2001, the painting was bought by London art dealer Guy Morrison, the hammer price of £9.4 million was a record for a work by Reynolds and then the second highest amount paid for a painting by a British artist. The painting was acquired by Irish businessman John Magnier and he was refused an export licence while the Tate Gallery sought funding to make an offer to acquire the work. An anonymous donation allowed the gallery to make an offer of £12.5 million, but Magnier refused to sell, and in the meantime he refused to allow the painting to be displayed in public in the UK

11.
Mary Palmer
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Mary Palmer, née Mary Reynolds, was an author from Devon, England, who wrote Devonshire Dialogue, once considered the best piece of literature in the vernacular of Devon. She was a sister of the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mary was the eldest daughter and third child of Samuel Reynolds, master of the Plympton Earl grammar school, Devonshire, by his wife, Theophila Potter. She was 7 years older than her brother Joshua Reynolds and her fondness for drawing is said to have influenced him when a boy. In 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshuas pupilage, Sir Joshua Reynolds painted two portraits of his sister Mary, one made about 1747, the other when she was aged about 60 years of age. Both portraits descended to her great-grandson, George Stawell of Great Torrington and their other siblings included the artist Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson. Mary Palmer was the author of Devonshire Dialogue, considered by the Dictionary of National Biography in 1895 to be the best piece of literature in the vernacular of Devon and it gives an account of the customs, characters and dialect unique to western England. Written in the middle of the 18th century, it was shown to friends and extracts were published in periodicals during her lifetime, a portion appeared in 1837 with a glossary by her grandson James Frederick Palmer, son of John Palmer. A complete version was edited by her daughter Theophila Gwatkin in 1839, on 18 July 1740 Mary Reynolds married John Palmer of Great Torrington, Devonshire, who trained as a solicitor. In 1752 he built a house at Great Torrington now known as Palmer House, John and Mary Palmer had five children, two sons and three daughters, Joseph Palmer, Dean of Cashel, and author of A Four Months Tour in France. He resided at Beam House, Great Torrington, John Palmer, Honorary Canon of Lincoln Cathedral Mary II Palmer, who together with her sister Offy spent much time in London with their uncle, Sir Joshua Reynolds. He had great affection for them, painted their portraits, in 1792 she married Murrough OBrien, 5th Earl of Inchiquin, later 1st Marquis of Thomond. Mary died without issue in 1820 and left as her heir her brother John Palmer, Theophila Palmer married in 1781 Robert Lovell Gwatkin of Killiow, Cornwall. Life and times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, a Dialogue in the Devonshire Dialect by A Lady to which is added a Glossary London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman

Édouard Manet'sOlympia, 1863. Manet was enormously influenced by the paintings of Velázquez, and in Olympia a kind of paraphrasing of the eroticism and the boldness of the subject clearly shows the legacy of the Rokeby Venus.

Arrival of the English Ambassadors by Vittore Carpaccio, painted between 1495 and 1500—though ostensibly part of a series of paintings on the life of Saint Ursula, this actually depicts the developing diplomatic practices of the Republic of Venice in the painter's own time

Before taking office, an ambassador's credentials must be accepted, such as when South African Ambassador Harry Schwarz handed his credentials to U.S. President George H. W. Bush in 1991.

Maria-Pia Kothbauer, Princess of Liechtenstein and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Czech Republic, presenting her credentials to Václav Klaus

The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. It has a unique …

Image: Burlington House

A 19th century illustration of the Royal Academy

Satirical drawing of Sir William Chambers, one of the founders, trying to slay the 8-headed hydra of the Incorporated Society of Artists

Study for Henry Singleton's painting The Royal Academicians assembled in their council chamber to adjudge the Medals to the successful students in Painting, Sculpture, Architecture and Drawing, which hangs in the Royal Academy. Ca. 1793.